It is hard to remember the year and since I never got this buck mounted to hang on my wall, I would have never remembered the actual year.  Ok! I do remember the year, same year that I went to Adak, AK for special assignment with the Naval Security Group in Feb. of the same year.   The hat helped me remember the time frame…
What I do remember about this hunt is that Ben and I were going to hunt the Pine Creek Ranch outside of Clarno, OR.  The problem being that we were not going to be able to hunt until Monday, yet we paid the same as the opening weekend groups.

Hay Creek Ranch Mule Deer – Last day of the season!

So we hunted near Ashwood, OR, most likely on Darrel Friends Ranch, as he would give us access to hunt.   We had a lot of fun on the hunt, but never connected on anything at Darrel’s place.

We arrived before daybreak on the Pine Creek Ranch and worked hard to harvest a buck, but were pretty picky and never connected here either on the hunt.  It was extremely hot on the opening weekend and the week.

Ben had to leave and get back to work at Darigold Dairy and I would be on my own for the rest of the hunt.   I got a wild hair to call a rancher that I knew outside of Madras at Gateway, OR.   Well JR said that he wanted to hunt with me and that we could work the back country near Hay Creek Ranch off the county road.   We did not even get to his gate in the ridge country when we started to see lots of deer, including a number of bucks.

Now you have to remember that JR and his local buddies and family had already hunted for deer and had taken their limit.   I would be coming in to do clean-up and hopefully get in on a buck.   This was the last day of the hunt and I would shoot almost any buck now, but I wanted it to be a good long range shot to have some challenge on the hunt.   I had my 340 Weatherby with 225gr. Sierra Grand Slams (got them free from the rep) on this hunt.  JR thought I was a bit on the over kill and I assured him that it would just put a hole through the boiler room, it would though drop the buck in his tracks.   A few years later JR would start to use a 338 Win. Mag. with Barnes X to kill deer and elk…

We were cruising around the bare ridges in an old Willys Jeep of JR’s, it made it much easier to cover the ground and steep ridges on a hot day.   We spotted a number of bucks, mostly being forked horns and past up on a number of them.  

All of a sudden JR spots an ok buck at about 500 yards standing broadside on a bluff.   I was able to get out and take a rest.   Taking a breath in and moving down to the target, with the set trigger set, I touched off and the buck fell in his tracks.  Yes! The pack-out was easy as I knew that JR could get that old Willys Jeep to the deer.   Quickly we headed back to a line shack that JR had on his ranch and cleaned the deer.
I would have love to stay for the evening just to see how many bucks we could find, but I had been gone a long time and needed to get back to Portland.

I have had the privilege to hunt deer, elk and exotics on this ranch over the years.